


Kiss Me Hard Before You Go

by breaking_points



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Funeral, I am so sorry, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Christianity, Romeo + Juliet - Freeform, They die, probably terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 19:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12847590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breaking_points/pseuds/breaking_points
Summary: Think I'll miss you foreverLike the stars miss the sun in the morning skyLater's better than neverEven if you're gone I'm gonna drive~ Lana del Rey"Summertime Sadness"





	Kiss Me Hard Before You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Procrastination fic? What procrastination fic?
> 
> I know I cried when I thought this up. You have been warned.
> 
> The title is taken from Lana del Rey's "Summertime Sadness." I'd recommend listening to it while you read, if you can.
> 
> Another Lana del Rey song is mentioned, "Video Games." It's also a great song that you should listen to if you get the opportunity. (I love Lana del Rey, can you tell?)
> 
> Enjoy! (Or cry, up to you. Just please comment if you think it's not terrible.)

He just couldn’t eat anymore.

 

It was ironic; the same boy who always used the excuse “I’m a growing child,” now couldn’t eat, to save his life, in the most literal sense of the phrase.

 

It eerily reminded him of that biography of Annie Oakley that she’d once shown him, saying that when Annie died, her devoted husband, Frank Butler, simply stopped eating once he heard the news.

 

He felt it then, that unsteady thump, thump. He’d had problems with his heart for so long, it was just another routine. Pray that you wouldn’t die, and the ol’ thumper would go back to normal.

 

But this time, it was different. He knew it.

 

It soon ended, just as quickly as it begun, his heart stopping, his head hitting the floor, his gunmetal blue eyes staring up ahead.

 

 _Lifeless_.

 

\--

 

_“Jughead,” Betty whispered, her green eyes boring into his blue eyes that reminded her of gunmetal. The eyes had been the same, looking into each other with love, but it was so different now. How, possibly, could this have happened?_

 

_Jughead had gone from a raven-haired boy, his bashful grin slowly creeping up his angular face, into a sad, pensive old man, who only had frowns to offer. All hope of joy and happiness had fled at the news that Betty, the love of his life, was going to die._

 

_“Please,” she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. “Don’t go.”_

 

_And though he was so used to running, though all he knew was a flight-mode, no fight-mode, he stayed. He cried with her, held her hand through it all._

 

_Her beautiful buttercup-colored hair had faded into a white. Her jade-green eyes were as sharp as before, but they held more tears than they ever had before. Just looking into them made Jughead’s heart shatter all over again._

 

_“How much longer?” he choked out, the tears stinging his eyes._

 

_“A half hour at the most, Juggie,” she answered, her white hair splayed across the pillow._

_It would have been so much easier had they had children, but there were none to speak of. They had tried, once, and they succeeded - but it had ended in a tiny grave, with the name Juliet Jones sorrowfully displayed alongside a rose._

 

_She couldn’t have any more children, she didn’t want to. It felt like an utter betrayal of the black-haired, green-eyed baby that had been handed to her with everything but a heartbeat._

_They would have made excellent parents, Veronica had said, over and over, as they played with little Freddie, but it wasn’t enough. Ever since little Julie, nothing was ever the same when it came to children._

 

_“Do you remember something, Juggie?”_

 

_He raised his head and nodded, a silent affirmation._

 

_“That day, in my room, when you kissed me for the first time…” her thoughts are again, scattered. Ever since the chemo, she hadn’t been the same. No more quick wit, no more laughing along with him._

 

_She begins again. “When you kissed me for the first time...I know, it was, it was interrupted...But it felt like coming home.”_

 

_He nods. She’s rambling, an adorable habit that has stayed with her for 70 years. The one thing that he could always hold on to, along with her undying love._

_“I know, there has been some...hurdles, obstacles in the way, and I know you blame yourself…”_

_Her voice is breathy and hoarse. Jughead silently hands her water and she drains the glass, not without difficulty, and sets it down._

 

_“But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”_

 

_She makes an effort to place her hand in his. He takes it, and looks into her eyes with all the love and trust and warmth that he always has felt for her._

  


_“I really wouldn’t...Do you remember that Lana del Rey song? The one we played at our wedding?”_

 

_She’s remembering. Jughead had read once that the true way to know if someone’s dying is if they get younger. He hadn’t understood it at first, but oh God, he knew now what it meant. She was back in those days of cupcakes and weddings and floating dresses and stolen kisses, a stark contrast to this off-white hospital room with an IV and a steady beeping filling the room, the only noise besides Betty’s laboured breathing._

 

_She’s been looking at him expectantly, so he shakes his head. He can’t remember these precious memories and he hates it, because it means she’s dying without him, while he stays, down in this dreadful limbo between life and death. He got dealt a bad hand by the purveyor of life, too, with a heartbeat all over the place, the cause of many collapses over the past decade._

_“Video Games, Juggie. That lyric?”_

 

_“They say that the world was built for two, only worth living if somebody is loving you.”_

 

_The morose, wailing voice of Lana del Rey fills their heads, and he nods._

 

_“I know now, Juggie. I know now how right she was.”_

 

_Her voice is fading, almost like it’s the end of a CD track. He looks up in alarm. She’s been breathing on her own these last few minutes, after pleading the doctors. She wanted to die this way, she told them, on her own breaths._

 

_He gets up, slowly, and her eyes are closed. He’ll never gaze into them again, he thinks._

 

_He presses his lips to her, a last hello and goodbye and I love you and I’ll miss you forever all rolled into one._

 

_She reciprocates, or tries to, with all the strength that she has. She gently falls back, and he pulls away, still holding her close._

 

_“Juggie…” falls out of her lips, and a sigh is breathed out. The beeping stops, and God, it’s such movie material that he could laugh._

 

_But he’s crying, unstoppable tears, pouring, pouring down his face as he closes his eyes, too. He can feel it, within his bones, that a part of him has dissolved, and he’s so empty, a bottomless void._

 

_Years ago, Betty had taken him to church, telling him that God had saved him and he was going to go to heaven. He began believing it, because in his mind, there was no way that anything less than a higher power had given him Betty._

 

_Maybe God was intent on screwing him over, taking away everything he had. Maybe he was destined for hell, just like he’d always been._

 

_He then heard a voice. It sounded so much like Betty, but within the walls of his soul._

 

_“You’ll get here soon. Julie and I are here.”_

 

_He knows, and he understands._

\--

 

“Jughead?” calls out Veronica Lodge from outside. She’s still the same, Chanel lipstick, Louboutin heels, and perfect eyeliner. Only now, in a black dress and a black veil covering part of her face, she’s bearing an uncanny resemblance to _Thinking of You_ Katy Perry.

 

She’s broken, sure, her best friend has just died. But her makeup is flawless and her expression neutral. _Save it for the funeral, Veronica_ , she’s told herself every time that she starts to cry.

 

Archie Andrews, now a gray-haired renowned musician, takes out his spare key and opens the door to the small house formerly inhabited by Betty and Jughead, to bring Jughead to say goodbye.

 

“Jughead?” Veronica calls out.

 

They both have this queasy feeling in their gut, the feeling, the knowledge, that something isn’t right.

 

They come to the dining room, and there they see it. The gray-haired man, who has known many joys yet many sorrows, is lying on the floor. His beautiful blue-gray eyes are staring up at the ceiling. His body across the floor.

 

_Dead._

 

Archie steps up to the corpse and gently closes its eyes, and Veronica envisions a double funeral, with matching headstones, across from the tiny one erected long, long ago.

 

_In pace requiescat._

 

May he rest in peace _._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry. My angsty muse shook me at 11 PM and forced me to write this down the day after. It's probably the 'That Fic Sounded A LOT Better in My Head,' kinda deal, but still, please comment! It would mean so much to me. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I did the whole Christianity thing because a) I used to be a Christian, now I'm agnostic, and b) I'm pretty sure Betty wears a cross necklace, like a really small one, and it makes sense that she'd bring up the idea to Jughead. It was probably poorly written, and didn't belong, but ah well. For me, there had to be some mention of the afterlife or it would be a huge question mark. 
> 
> I really don't know, tell me what you think.
> 
> Side Note: Yay I have a Tumblr now! Come find me, I'm @eveningskiesforeyes; I post sneak peeks and stuff there. It's the same profile pic.


End file.
